Durazzo Book of Hours

"Il Libro d'Ore Durazzo".
Facsimile book, 2008.
Limited edition, Panini.
Numbered copy, 426/980.
The work is accompanied by a volume of commentaries by Andrea De Marchi.
Velvet binding with gilt, with silver and silver-gilt hardware and clasps on both covers,
Both volumes presented in a slipcase lined in fine red velvet.
Measurements: 5 x 13 x 16 cm (facsimile); 32 x 24 x 11 cm (box).

The Durazzo Book of Hours is a purple and gold treasure, made at the beginning of the 16th century and preserved in the Biblioteca Civica Berio in Genoa. The Italian facsimile edition belongs to the Impossible Library project of the publisher Franco Cosimo Panini.

The Durazzo Book of Hours, named after its last owner, is a small and luxurious masterpiece by the painter and miniaturist Francesco Marmitta. It is a surprising work that differs from all other devotional codices intended for private use for two peculiar characteristics: the use of purple parchment and chrysography, that is, writing with gold characters, traced in this case by a master of the art of calligraphy, Pietro Antonio Sallando, a professor at the University of Bologna.

The goldsmith of the miniature page: a splendid and sumptuous artist, also gifted as a goldsmith and carver, the Parmesan Francesco Marmitta (1462/1466 - c. 1505) expressed his skills in superb works, including, in addition to the Durazzo Book of Hours, the beautiful Missal by Domenico della Rovere in the Museo Civico in Turin. In the pages of his masterpieces, in addition to displaying a delicate sensitivity and remarkable landscape skills, he also showed his predilection for gems, medals and cameos, mined with great exquisiteness.

A marvelous decoration: the meditated recovery of the classical tradition, evident in the use of purple and gold lettering, is confirmed by the ornamental lexicon of panoply, medals, cameos and bucklers, while the pictorial language of the Calendar and of the Offices of the Virgin reveals an updating of the style with the latest acquisitions of the Bolognese figurative culture, denoting a particular attention to Amico Aspertini.

The refined binding: the elegant and elaborate binding in chiseled and embossed silver with gilded areas on a purple velvet background dates from the same period as the codex, sharing with it a decoration of similar taste. The profusion of motifs with classical reminiscences based on palmettes, acanthus leaves, ears of corn, bunches of grapes, vases, masks, beetles and buckaroos is splendid.